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Manawatu Striders Super Seven Series – #1 (18 January 2011)

The Manawatu Striders, in association with Vautier Pharmacy, hosts the Super Seven Series. This is a series of 7 events over 7 consecutive weeks (each Tuesday), each 7km long.

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T-shirt, socks and “permanent” number for all 7 events.

After reading the severe weather warnings on the MetService website (amongst others, the after-effect of a Oz tropical cyclone heading our way) we briefly considered doing our daily run before the onslaught of the predicted gusts and rainstorms. The unbearable heat during the “quiet before the storm” period was something else. But apart from the extremely hot and humid temperature, the weather seemed to be holding up and we ended up entering for the whole series of 7 runs, including an event T-shirt, for only $35. Continue reading →

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Manawatu Striders – Tuesday club run & walk (11 January 2011)

Had a jolly nice 8km run with Alister (Chairperson of the Manawatu Striders) tonight! He was looking after us not-so-fit/fast newcomers to make sure we find our way around the course. Thanks Al! The club currently seems to boast more walkers than runners. They gather twice weekly for runners (Tuesdays and Sunday) and three times a week for the walkers (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays).

Unlike SA clubs that normally caters for all levels of speed, you have to be quite fast here to keep up with the group, who seems to be going at about a 5min/km pace. Could this maybe contribute to the lower number of runners at the club? If you’re new to running, a 5min/km pace is quite daunting, me thinks. Being a bit of a slow poke, it’s daunting to me who’s been running for 10+ years, last managing a 5min/km pace in 2003!

🙂

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HHH – Hash House Harriers (10 January 2011)

Gerry and I did our very first Hash today with the Palmerston North Hash House Harriers. Some of the blokes have managed over a 1000 hashes! Very impressive indeed.

Those who don’t know what this is, it is often jokingly referred to as “a drinking club with a running problem”. It is a worldwide tradition which, in short, is described as follows: “At a Hash, one or more members (Hares) lay a trail, which is then followed by the remainder of the group (the Pack or Hounds). The trail often includes false trails, short cuts, dead ends, and splits. These features are designed to keep the pack together regardless of fitness level or running speed, as front-runners are forced to slow down to find the “true” trail, allowing stragglers to catch up”. ” Apart from the excitement of chasing the hare and finding the trail, harriers reaching the end of the trail would be rewarded with beer, ginger beer and cigarettes.” – Wikipedia.

Had a lovely BBQ afterwards.

On-On.

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Tongariro Northern Circuit – 30 December 2010 to 2 January 2011

Having done many hikes in South Africa, I always tended to measure the difficulty rating (extremity) according to, first of all, the distance you walk per day and secondly the altitude, eg 3000+ metres above sea level (often with corresponding low temperatures). But with a pair of shorts and tekkies you can do almost any hike with the exception of the Drakensberg in winter and at night. The temperature drops below freezing so you have to be prepared. While there’s the odd rare bit of rain sometimes and some hail now and then, you hardly ever get to experience rain-storms, blizzards, wind, snow or any other alpine weather conditions in SA. Neither would you ever need crampons or ice picks. However, in New Zealand, alpine conditions seem to kick in at much lower altitudes, making elevation and weather more important difficulty-factors than distance.

Not sure what to expect of NZ hikes, we decided on the Tongariro Northern Circuit as our introduction. We were keen to get out of the city and into nature over the new year and the Tongariro National Park seems to be a biggie (at least as far as the North Island is concerned) – popping up in conversations and magazines quite often. Continue reading →

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Olex Bell Block 10km and pre-race rave run (26 December 2010)

“All of a sudden it hit me – if there was such a thing as composing music, there could be such a thing as composing motion. After all, there are melodic figures, why can’t there be figures of motion?” – Len Lye
Gerry struggling from turkey and wine overload.
Sharing the path with some other runners also working off the X-mas binge.
Gerry rounding a corner on the last stretch of our rave run.

Visiting friends in New Plymouth for X-mas (thanks Deon and Henriette!), Gerry and I decided to enter for the Olex Bell Block 10km run. A good way to rid some of the turkey and trifle reserve kilos. And in any case, we’re on a mission to get to marathon fitness level again.

After some negotiating and marathon-hunting on the internet, Gerry found some lovely runs and decided impromptu to enter for two of them. As we know, nothing like a good challenge to get you out the door for the sometimes “challenging” training sessions. These races – the Dual (on 26 March) and the T42 (held on 7 May) – both seem like exciting scenic runs in the country and are both classified as trail runs. And if we can keep up the training and not get injured, we might sneak in the Mountain to Surf marathon at the beginning of March. Having done this race in 2008, I have a soft spot for the event, which was well presented by very friendly and helpful organizers. They even offered us foreigners a cottage to overnight before the race. Continue reading →